Kenneth Tobey is frequently
overlooked in surveys of science fiction stars of the 1950s, one might argue,
because he typically portrays a man who wishes to be overlooked—a simple,
straightforward man, usually a soldier or police officer, who doesn't want to
be a hero, but only wants to do the job he has been given, and do it well, and
then recede into the background while he waits for his next assignment. And
whether that assignment involves tracking down some train-robbing varmint or destroying
a giant octopus climbing on to the Golden Gate Bridge
does not strike him as a matter of great importance. But another reason for his
neglect must be considered: after a few key roles early in the 1950s, Tobey found
it difficult to obtain further roles in the decade's steady parade of movies
about monsters and aliens, suggesting that, for some fundamental reason, he was
not really suited to star in science fiction films.

Tobey may well have
spent his entire career portraying sheriffs and soldiers but for the accident
of meeting Howard HAWKS while playing a tiny part in
I Was a Male War Bride (1948). A few years later, uncharacteristically
preparing a science fiction film to provide his longtime editor Christian
Nyby with a needed directorial credit, Hawks must have
remembered Tobey and realized that he would be ideal as the hard-nosed commander
of the Arctic base beset by a malevolent plant from outer space. Having excelled
in that role, Tobey was a natural choice to star in two subsequent monster
movies, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
and It Came from Beneath the Sea.
But in those films, the problem with Tobey became
evident. In Hawks's vision of science fiction, scientists
figured mainly as effeminate idealists who needed to be shoved aside by tough
guys like Tobey who could manfully deal with the menace at hand. Yet the
general trend in 1950s science fiction films was to present scientists as
handsome heroes who combined machismo with scientific knowledge to overcome the
monsters; and it was apparent that Tobey, unlike other stalwarts like Richard
CARLSON or even Jeff MORROW, was utterly unable to convey any genuine
understanding of science. Thus, he could bark out orders and punch people out,
but he had to depend on someone else to explain what was going on and figure
out how to deal with it.So it is that
in It Came from Beneath the Sea, although
Tobey is apparently the hero who appears in all the scenes and gets the girl,
all he really does is to implement the good advice of stunningly beautiful marine
biologist Faith DOMERGUE, the person who, in the end, is actually responsible
for ridding San Francisco of that troublesome giant octopus. And while
contemporary scholars might be pleased by the proto-feminist message conveyed
by her leading role in combating the monster, it was an absolute body blow to
Tobey's credibility as a science fiction hero.

Thus, while
continuing to land occasional film roles, Tobey largely retreated to a career
in television, where he spent the better part of two decades apparently
guest-starring in every single western series ever filmed, from Frontier Circus to
Kung Fu, and made several appearances alongside his old sparring
partner from The Thing (from Another
World), the now-respectable James Arness, along
with numerous roles in modern dress as an officer or policeman. When he reached
the age of sixty, one might have expected him to drift into retirement; but
there was now a new generation of film directors in Hollywood who had grown up watching and
loving 1950s science fiction films and were eager to reconnect with beloved
childhood heroes. So Tobey launched a new career of cameo performances in
various homages to, and spoofs of, the 1950s films he
had once been a part of. There was nothing really remarkable about any of these
later roles, but you can be sure that Tobey always showed up on time, knew his
lines, and did exactly what he was supposed to do,
just like the proverbial good soldier he was born to play.